I love you, my Angel

Summary:
The night Edward 'died' but he wasn't alone. There was someone beside him, begging him to stay the whole time, pleading with him not to leave her in the darkness of her world. AU.

Notes:
Sooo....This can be a one shot....or it can't be a one shot....u choose.... I got the idea from listening to The River Flows In You and looking at an old fashoned picture hanging on my wall of a flower surounded building with lots of windows and a horse buggy outside....but I'm not really sure how that ended up as this....hmmmm...

13. Chapter 13

The class was already nearly full; the teacher—Mrs. Hiltsip—started by first taking roll, drawling it out for several minutes. The kids in the class liked her and joked, taking up more of the class hour. They laughed and poked and teased her about something her husband had said.

We were fifteen minutes into class before she settled down the class.

“Alright, let’s open to page three hundred and forty-seven. We’re starting a new chapter today,”

Despite trying to block out the sounds, I still heard their mingled groans and continued soft chatter. A couple of the students flipped through their books; I didn’t move.

“Okay, who in here takes Spanish?” Mrs. Hiltsip called out, standing at the front of the class with her book out, balanced in one hand.

A few hands shot up; several of those in the class were already confused.

One boy expressed his bewilderment and Mrs. Hiltsip laughed. “Okay, okay, you can put your hands down. Toda, class, and for the rest of the week, too, we’re learning about the Spanish Influenza,” She said excitedly, “Now, who would like to read the first chapter?”

My gasp was loud and burned on its way out. A choked sound came out of my lips.

Mrs. Hiltsip heard and smiled brightly at me. She was either oblivious of my agony or chose to ignore it. “Bella,” She called delightedly, “would you like to read first then?”

I froze, the whole class watching me closely. Several of the heartbeats doubled tin pace. I didn’t have to look to see they were all male.

Usually I was very careful to skip classes that actually went over the Influenza—most skipped it or went over in a small sentence. Rarely did the teacher spend the whole class on it, much less a week.

Only a second had passed.

On suddenly very hollow feeling legs, I rose to my feet. My chair made a horribly loud grating sound against the floor.

My breathing was only a little shaky as I silently flipped slowly to the page, suddenly very aware of the class watching me in a silent spell.

Even Mrs. Hiltsip sat down to listen.

“The Spanish Influenza—“ I halted, cleared my throat, and started again, “—The Spanish Influenza began in 1918—1919, killing more than one-fifth of the world’s population…”

My throat tightened up in unexpected places and when I spoke it was in a brittle and cracked voice. Occasionally, a loud hitch in my words would blurt out, but no one said anything—they all listened with rapt attention, spellbound by my inhumanly beautiful voice. They didn’t seem to realize it was me dry sobbing.

“—the disease’s symptoms made people achy and feverish—some died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth—” My voice cut off in a wild, pained gasp. For several seconds I said nothing. I stared dully down at the writing, trying to collect myself.

Reading about it, practically having Edward’s story written before me, was excruciating. I had to think about all the dead, the unbearable stench of all those bodies rotting of the disease, the feel of the strangely unmoving corps under my small hands—all the memories of the dead and lost hammered down on me in a fresh wave of drowning pain. My mother—who died without notice little less than a week after Edward—, my grandmother, half the neighborhood: all dead. A fifth of the world’s population taken from the ravaging sickness; it was more than the war had even stolen. So many dead!

And then Edward. I could see in my mind’s eye how his face had been so sickly pale, with the thick sheen of sweat covering him; the way his breath had come out so loud and labored, like he was choking. His copper hair had darkened from the sweat, plastering to his face. And I remembered his eyes, the way his red-rimmed green eyes had blazed with so much life and vitality…before they had closed and his heartbeat had faltered and never started up again.

I wrenched myself back to where I really was, in a classroom, alone and desolate.

I silently placed my book down and glanced up at Mrs. Hiltsip through my eyelashes, “Actually, Mrs. Hiltsip, I’m not feeling very well. May I be excused?” I murmured in my most persuasive voice I could manage, trying to hide the pain—the overwhelming anguish.

Mrs. Hiltsip blinked once, like she was waking from a vivid dream “Yes, of course, dear. Beautiful reading; it felt like I was almost there—”

I fled the room as fast as humanly possible, despite to escape the hellish world I’d momentarily slipped into.

As soon as I made it out into the empty halls, my shoulders went lax; I shuttered, closing my eyes and leaning against the wall. I hugged myself tightly, suddenly very cold and very lonely. The loneliness crept down my spine with icy fingers; I whimpered once.

“Edward,” I moaned once, letting all the want and lose, and pain, and complete longing out in that one word.

And then it just clicked—I could go now. Flee to his arms, some dark voice seduced softly. Run to the end and find him. Jasper was safe; you can go now. And the voice was right. Jasper had others to look after him now. He didn’t need me anymore, did he? I had yanked him for the world of death and emotion turmoil; my mission was over.

I blinked bewilderedly as that new information settled in. I realized I’d known all this long time: I’d been living to keep Jasper living, but now that he’d found another source of life—and something infinitely better, Alice—I was free to go.

Some invisible weight I hadn’t known was there suddenly lifted and I felt strangely light. It was a unknown, alien feeling.

Only seconds had passed since I’d left the class, yet my whole life altered just as drastically as it had that summer night I’d fallen in love with Edward on a hay ride we’d gone on, or the night he had died. It hat completely shifted and now it was as if I was looking at everything through completely different eyes—I was free to go.

Still feeling strangely light, I floated out of the school in an unseen blur.